2023-11-09 19:51:45
For the left-wing Italian daily The Unity, It’s about a “decision that breaks a taboo”, or even a “little revolution”. Wednesday November 8, reports the Corriere della Sera, “on the website of the Vatican Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, the responses of Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández to questions sent in July by a Brazilian bishop have been published”. These responses, officially approved by Pope Francis, stipulate in particular the following.
A transgender person, we can read, “can be baptized under the same conditions as the other faithful”, unless there is “situations which risk causing a public scandal or which could disorient the faithful”, relays the Milanese daily. An opening which also concerns the roles of godfather or godmother, which according to this new doctrine of the Church, can also be exercised by transgender people, always with the reservation of avoiding situations that could “cause a scandal”.
Finally, the Holy See also affirms that it has no problem with a transgender person taking on the role of marriage witness. Further on, Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández also states directly that a child of a homosexual couple can receive baptism.
“The Church had never said these things”
For the centrist newspaper, these positions of the Church “are consistent with the trajectory of Francis, but the Church had never said these things in black and white, in such an explicit way”.
This is undoubtedly the reason why, on the other side of the Atlantic, The Washington Post welcomes him too of these announcements supported by the sovereign pontiff. And to report on the repercussions of these, the American media gives the floor to Kori Pacyniak. The man, who studies the religious experience of transgender Catholics at the University of California, praises Francis for “trying to transform the Church into a more welcoming place”, and, although progress is often very slow, “that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t celebrate the small steps along the way.”
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